Facelift (Illustration)
Photo: Jeremy Feldman
Israeli bills to get 'facelift'
Treasury, Bank of Israel say new issue of NIS 20, 50, 200 notes will have better anti-counterfeiting traits as well as new 'faces'
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer agreed Wednesday to gradually change the images on Israel's paper money.
A special Bank of Israel committee was given the task of determining who among the prominent figures in Israel's history would be immortalized in money.
The familiar faces of Moshe Sharett, Israel's second prime minister, who is featured on the NIS 20 bill, Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon, (NIS 50 note) and Israel's third president Zalman Shazar (NIS 200 bill) will be replaces with those of Binyamin Zeev Herzl and prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin.
Currently, there are 300 million bills in circulation and changing them will entail considerable costs. The new bills will be introduces by 2012.
Israel changes its notes' series every few years, mainly in order to improve the bills' anti-counterfeiting traits.
Nevertheless, this would be the first time the series change includes changing the image on the bills.
